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Leader: Economy plays hand in schools shake-up
Friday 11th November 2011, 1:30PM GMT.
An artist's impression of how the newly-designed canopy at Telford's Abraham Darby Academy will look
The reshaped Building Schools for the Future programme announced for Telford will mark the biggest upheaval in the town’s educational infrastructure in a generation.
There are winners, and losers. The winners are the early starters, like the flagship Abraham Darby Academy well on its way to completion at Madeley in a project worth around £35 million.
For other schools, the changing economic climate has had its effect. What was going to be a programme worth £240 million has been trimmed by £40 million.
Consequently Telford & Wrekin Council’s Labour administration has revisited the scheme and made a number of fundamental changes. It is unavoidably a cut price alternative to the original dreams.
While it has been presented in terms of rebuilding, regeneration, and exciting investment, in practical terms there are going to be an element of school closure and school merger. For instance, the Sutherland school at Trench will shut and merge with the Wrockwardine Wood school at a site in Oakengates. BRJ will shut at Wellington and be reborn as a Christian (Catholic?) faith academy in Priorslee.
Parents, children, and staff will need to pore over the proposals to see how they will be affected. Over the coming days, once the implications have been digested, we will be able to gauge their reaction.
However, Telford’s children deserve the best possible start in life. These plans will serve up a number of brand new academies which can, and should, be shining beacons of educational excellence.
Some schools with fine reputations and rooted in their communities will disappear forever under these proposals, and will no doubt be sadly missed.
But we must look to the future, and if these proposals lead to state-of-the art schools which build their own traditions and reputations of achievement and excellence, it will mark a great leap forward.
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So, if I’m reading this correctly, the story is as follows:
- close BRJ; make the Catholic pupils travel to the other side of Telford to a multi-faith school
- build a new school in Priorslee and brand it as a “Christian Faith Academy” which sounds like the worst of all worlds – a small minority of strict CofE parents might approve of it, but Catholic parents and the majoirty of residents who are not religious won’t.
- rebuild Charlton school on the vacant BRJ site, just down the road.
Nice one T&W! Sorry, but I’m failing to see the “great leap forward”.
Sheer madness!!
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The bRJ intakes students of the Roman Caqtholic faith from all across Telford so I guess the logic (for want of a more accurate word) in moving it to Priorslee is that it will be more central in the town and therefore cause less travelling for a greater number of pupils ????
Combining the Sutherland and Wrockwardine Wood on one site in Oakengates (weren’t they going to more Wrock’ Wood to Priorslee before ???) makes a less sense but a lot less than the MERC (showing my age) and Ab Dab when it was acknowledged the buildings were past their best so they took to longer term view and put new buildings on the same grounds thereby causing less disruption
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I can understand the writer’s apprehension, but can reassure him that the new school will be inclusive. The proposed Priorslee school will be a joint Catholic / CofE academy, supported by both the Catholic and CofE dioceses. There are a number of these in operation, with Liverpool leading the way in joint church schools. (try Googling ‘hope academy’ for one example)
There are already about 10 CofE primary schools in Telford, catering for the needs of pupils of all faiths, so there is a pattern to follow. In addition BRJ, which contrary to some stories will NOT be disappearing, will be part of this new Academy and already has as part of its community many Sikhs, Muslims and people of all faiths (or none), some of whom travel from the other side of the borough to take up their right to a faith based education.
Another factor that has to be taken into account is the distribution of post-16 education. Wellington has three post 16 providers- BRJ, New College and TCAT. It makes sense to rationalise this and give some provision to an area that has none.
As for moving Charlton to the BRJ site, the present Charlton site is very cramped and would not be easy to renovate or rebuild. It is also log-jammed at the start and end of the school day, as the residents will tell you. Rebuilding on the BRJ site would be easier and probably cheaper than trying to juggle students in and out of temporary buildings while the work is done.
Finally, don’t forget that this will release prime building land, the sale of which will help to finance the school building project.
Robert Hall, Headteacher BRJ
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Who on earth wrote this piece? It’s appallingly constructed. Any that’s my moan out of the way…..
This revised plan makes perfect sense.
The student cohort who attend BRJ don’t all live in Wellington, in reality they come from a geographically wide catchment area that stretches across Telford and as far as Shrewsbury and Newport. BRJ also has the smallest number students of the schools concerned, so moving to a new site at Priorslee (where there’s a desperate need for a secondary school) seems the least disruptive option.
Far from being a “cut-price solution” these plans provide a neat solution to the problem of an increasing over-supply of places across Telford’s 11-18 schools. This is further compounded by the current Academies offering additional post-16 places, which means less students to go around.
The merger of Wrockwardine Wood and Sutherland will create a new, hopefully better school environment in Oakengates which then frees up valuable land at two sites that can be sold to boost council funds.
Similarly, moving BRJ to an already bought and paid for site at Priorslee makes sense. The current BRJ site belongs to the Diocese of Shrewsbury, they’ll be doing a land swap with the Council. I believe the Charlton site is worth 30% more than the BRJ one. It also might help the traffic congestion that occurs when both the BRJ and Charlton school days end.
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